SOCOM troops receive direct authority to recruit agents and make expenditures. Not that they were given a bushel of cash to play with but it hardly makes sense for the guys who make the vital " first contact" with potential, unconventional, friendlies in remote locales to look like cloutless flunkies wiring home to Mom for some cash. Trust-building gestures work best when done in the moment and not 24 -48 hours later. Or never.

Or for that matter having to pay for emergency supplies out of pocket that the USG should have given them in the first place.